Contrary to what people may believe, popular athletes get frustrated with things they read on Twitter just like the rest of us. When someone like Amar’e Stoudemire opens a Twitter account, it is with the understanding that fans have a forum to bash and critique them. The best way to deal with the criticism is to ignore it, but it appears Stoudemire had a lapse in judgment on Saturday when a follower called him a “deadass” and told him he needs to step his game up next season.

Amar’e sent a nasty direct message, which is a private message only the fan and not the public can see, but the fan later made the offensive message public by screenshotting it:

Skeptics immediately began accusing @BFerrelli of photoshopping the image, but he also posted an apology that Stoudemire sent him several hours later, presumably after he had seen some of the backlash his offensive direct message caused.

Assuming Stoudemire understands how Twitter works, I have no idea why he would do something like this. Sending a direct message is more private than posting on a user’s timeline, but we have plenty of technology these days that allows for anything you write on the internet to be shared with the world. Stoudemire quickly figured that out, but the damage was done. I’m guessing that will be the last time he says something like that to a fan through social media.